Just 3 Parents Show Up to Protest Campus Violence : Education: An organizer blames bad timing for the poor turnout. A student at Canyon High School was stabbed two weeks ago.

A planned demonstration by parents at Canyon High School in Canyon Country fizzled Monday when only three women showed up to protest the school’s alleged failure to prevent violence on campus, where a student was stabbed two weeks ago.

“It was at the wrong time . . . during the week,” said organizer Linda Van Auker, who founded Parents Against Violence in Education eight months ago. “It conflicted with people’s schedules.”

Van Auker said the poor turnout for the protest--organized after a meeting Dec. 8 at which irate parents demanded that school administrators take stronger action--did not show that parents are losing interest.

“I’m still getting too many calls” to think that, said Van Auker, mother of a Canyon High student, who came to a preparatory gathering but was not one of the three demonstrators.

Parents had been encouraged to bring whistles, poster board and picket signs to a gathering in Canyon Park on Friday morning and were scheduled to march in protest to the school. About six people showed up but only three went on to the school.

Beverly Ulaszek, mother of a Canyon High sophomore, said she attended the protest because she did not feel her voice would be heard alone.

“This was an opportunity to focus on concerns for which we previously didn’t have any clout,” she said.

Kay Meisenheimer, mother of a freshman, said she wanted to “let the administration know that we don’t want the violence, weapons and drugs to be forgotten. It shouldn’t have happened.”

Ulaszek and Meisenheimer demonstrated with Barbara Fay of Canyon Country, who said she has a 4-year-old who will attend Canyon High some day.

School Principal William White met them on the school sidewalk, telling them: “I’m tossed between insulting good kids on campus who feel this is turning into a police state, and increasing security.”

Fay replied that the school “is unsafe. I think we can risk insulting some kids to protect all kids.”

Meisenheimer said she felt students have too much freedom. “It’s time we show the kids it’s a parents’ school . . . even if it means permanently closing campus. That’s the way it was when I was in school,” she said.

Students disagreed that closing the campus--barring students from leaving the school grounds during the day, even for lunch--would make the school safer.

Students would be in closer proximity and “it would just make them fight each other more,” said James Selph, 17.

In response to the student attack, administrators closed the campus last week. Students were allowed off campus again Monday.

Pat Butterfield, 16, was stabbed in the abdomen and hand two weeks ago after he argued with another 16-year-old student, who was charged last week with attempted murder. Butterfield is recovering at home and the student who allegedly attacked him is being held at Sylmar Juvenile Hall. Two other students also were arrested in the incident and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

Linda Butterfield, mother of the stabbing victim, did not participate in the Monday demonstration.

“We need to take a more diplomatic and cohesive approach,” Butterfield said. “School administrators, parents and students need to work together. . . . We need to give students an example of how adults in society work together instead of throwing names and stones.”